A day at the beach

First off, I'm sorry for my silence. I've had some terrible flu bug for the past couple weeks. It's actually gone through the whole family, but I definitely got it the worst, and am still hanging onto it a little bit. The cough just won't go away!! But I'm certainly feeling better now than I was a week and a half ago...there were a few days in there that I really couldn't function at all. It was rough going for a while.

But now we are in San Diego for a nice long weekend, and the weather is GORGEOUS! It was actually a little on the chilly side today, which was a nice change from the awful heat we've been having at home. We spent today at the beach in Mission Bay Park, with some friends.

The girls stayed up the entire day. No nap. You can see Makayla rubbing her eyes. They were sooo sleepy. Hopefully they will sleep okay tonight! Makayla ran around so much she should. That little girl has no fear. None. If I had let her, she would have run right out into the water, shoes and clothes on, not holding my hand...no fear. She just wanted to run. She was so insistent about going to the water, I did finally take off her dress and shoes and let her walk in, where she stood for a minute, walked back out, and immediately got mad because the wind made her shiver and get goosebumps. She didn't try to go in the water anymore, though.

Anthony got to go on his first boat ride. Our friend Tamekia's uncle brought his boat, so Darrell and Anthony took a ride. If you look closely, you can see them sitting up in the front of the boat. Darrell said Anthony got a little gun-shy right as they were about to get on the boat, but once he was on it, he enjoyed the ride.

I think tomorrow we are headed either to the zoo or to Sea World...not sure yet. For now, I'm off to take some cough syrup and get some sleep.

And the winner is...

Thank you SO much to all who donated for the Tuesday Blog Party. I know it means so much to Jess and her family, and every little bit helps. I cannot imagine how broken my heart and my life would be if I were in her situation, and this is one small thing we can do towards fighting this awful cancer!

Now on to the winner! Chosen by the very random method of my 4-year old son pulling a name out of a bowl...the winner of the set of burp cloths is Beth!!!

Congratulations! Please email me at jenclark74 at gmail.com with your full name and address, so that I can ship them out to you right away! :)

For continued opportunities to give, check out this site!

The Tuesday Blog Party is here!!!

It's here!!!!! The Tuesday Blog Party starts TODAY and will run through May 12. Let's KNOCK OUT PEDIATRIC CANCER!!! No mom should have to face Mother's Day without her sweet baby. You can read my previous post to learn a bit more about Tuesday, or go to her mom's blog...her mama is so strong, but her story will break your heart.

Click on the graphic above to learn more about the blog party and to see all the other giveaways that are taking place. All you have to do in order to enter each giveaway is donate ONE DOLLAR per giveaway to the Tuesday Fiona Whitt Foundation via Paypal (you can make a single donation for the total amount covering all of the giveaways you are entering), then leave a comment on the blog doing the giveaway letting them know you've made the donation. When the blog party is over, each blog will randomly choose a winner.

My giveaway is a set of 3 adorable burp cloths, sewn by me. They are made from 100% cotton Gerber pre-folded cloth diapers and gorgeous 100% cotton Heather Bailey quilting fabric. The main print is a background of brown with beautiful greens, blues, yellows and a splash of red on it - and would be perfect for a baby boy or a girl! Any stylish mama would LOVE to have these!

Even if you're not pregnant or don't have a little one yourself, surely you have a friend who would love to be blessed with these pretties, or they would be a great baby shower gift! So click on the Paypal link here in this post, or over on my sidebar, make your ONE dollar donation, and then come back here and leave me a comment telling me how you heard about the Tuesday Blog Party and why you want these burp cloths!!

The giveaway will end at 11:59 pm Tuesday, May 12. Since Blogger doesn't require people to leave email addresses, and I don't want you to have to post your email addresses for all the world to see, check back here on Wednesday, May 13, and I will post the winner!

Thanks to all who entered; comments are now closed. However, you may still donate at any time!!

Spring button bouquet

Have you ever visited One Pretty Thing? If not, YOU MUST!!! Go, right now! I'll wait...

Seriously, I'm not just saying that because she was so kind as to feature my tin can organizer tutorial on her site last week, either. She puts together the most amazing groups of crafty inspiration. I love her site and get so many ideas there.

Like this adorable button bouquet, for example. It was originally featured on the American Crafts blog, and I immediately fell in love with it. How could you not? It's so colorful and fun and has buttons AND flowers...two of my favorite embellishments!

And, I had a sweet friend who was in need of a bit of cheer, and how could you NOT smile about this sunny bouquet??

Only...now I have an uncontrollable urge to go buy lots and lots of pretty, brightly colored buttons and felt flowers!! (And I went to Michaels, and Target...and so far, I have not found lots of pretty buttons...hmm...I DID, however, find some gorgeous flowers, including felt ones, on clearance at Michaels!)

Picasa vs. Photoshop

I've been a Picasa fan for a while, ever since my sister Karen introduced me. I still love Picasa. Photo-editing is SO easy in Picasa, and don't even get me started on how easy it is to post pictures to my blog via email through Picasa! (Read - not limited to 4 photos at a time, thank you, Blogger!). And really, for a free program, you can do a lot of cool stuff in Picasa. But I recently got Photoshop CS 2, and just began trying to play around with it. It's a little bit LOT intimidating and overwhelming, but I found a fun blog with free actions you can download, and so I've slowly been dipping my toes in the PS waters.

Just out of curiosity, I did a little comparison. I took a bad photo - I mean, really, it's NOT a good photo - and first, in Picasa, I just hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button. Usually that will get me pretty decent results. This is what I got:

So then, I went into Photoshop, and used the Perfect Portrait action from CoffeeShop, and THIS is what I got:

I was seriously amazed! I mean, it's still not my favorite photo...but the colors are so much more vivid, his eyes are brighter and have more "pop," his lips have more color, his teeth are whiter...it's just a world of difference!

So now I'm going to have yet one more thing sucking me into my computer, preventing me from doing my chores...photo-editing in Photoshop!! Imagine what I could do with a photo that was actually good to start with!